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<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">One of the themes I saw in the ELUNA 2019 presentations, that I was going to mention on Tuesday but forgot, is the beginnings of AI use in
libraries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">Two presentations at ELUNA centered around the use of Alexa in the library.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">On a personal note, I recently bought an Amazon Firestick+, which is basically “smart TV” functionality on a small HDMI-connected computing
device.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">Built into the Firestick is a cut-down version of Alexa. I hadn’t previously paid much attention to Alexa, Echo, Siri, etc. But after using
the Alexa functionality even briefly, I realized what game changer this stuff could be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">At the same time, I saw these Alexa-oriented presentations, and did some quick searching on other library efforts around AI.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">This stuff is coming, and the potential use of these voice activated devices in libraries for reference, accessibility and even language
translation services is pretty intriguing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">I’ll probably be looking this summer, just out of personal interest, at how to program Alexa “skills”, which I believe are the building blocks
of enabling custom abilities into Alexa. Such as answering such questions as “where is the bathroom?”, “when does the library close?”, “where is the movies section?”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">Davis, Greg</span></span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"> (2019) </span><a href="http://documents.el-una.org/1927/"><em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#0B0080;background:white">Connecting
Primo to Amazon Alexa.</span></em></a><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"> In: ELUNA 2019 Annual Meeting, April 29-May 3, 2019, Atlanta, GA.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="personname"><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white">Shih, Win</span></span><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"> and <span class="personname">Muraoka, Royd</span> (2019) </span><a href="http://documents.el-una.org/1812/"><em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#0B0080;background:white">Say
Library: When Alexa Meets Primo.</span></em></a><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black;background:white"> In: ELUNA 2019 Annual Meeting, April 29-May 3, 2019, Atlanta, GA.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Wade Guidry<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">WACTCLC<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Library Consortium Services Manager<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:wade@bigbend.edu"><span style="color:blue">wade@bigbend.edu</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.wactclc.org/"><span style="color:blue">http://www.wactclc.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">509.760.4474<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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